Burglaries are an unfortunately commonplace event in daily urban life, but on some very rare occasions their outcomes give cause for celebration and maybe even a smile. Two young men from the Portland area, keen to get on the smartphone bandwagon without paying, broke in and stole a pair of
Motorola Android handsets (along with other electronics) from a nearby household. What they didn't foresee, however, was that one of the phones would have the free Lookout app, which automatically backs up all photos taken with the handset to a user-accessible server every night. So, in the midst of testing out their ill-gotten loot, the criminals provided the phone's legitimate owner with enough visual clues for the police to swoop in and apprehend one of them. The search for his partner in crime continues, but the "gadget versus man" fight has already concluded with a clear win for what we presume was a Droid.
[Thanks, John]
posted January 12th 2010 8:45AM
It's gotta be a Droid. Those pictures are shitty.
@Bart Lee
They should lock this guy up just for taking blurry pics. That would set an example for all those people who leak pictures of phones the same way this guy takes pictures.
@JXCGunrunna Amen totally agree
@Bart Lee shitty for sure! lol
@Bart Lee Hey, Droid, Robocop called, he is happy to see you are doing his job well.
@Bart Lee Does your phone catch thieves? Droid Does!
@JXCGunrunna Or he could just stop committing crimes and listen to his true calling, gadget blog tipster...
Dumb crooks. You don't sit and chill and take pictures you go in and out O.G. style.
They were stupid enough to turn the phones on - cell tower tracing, anyone?
@grydlok
Haven't 2 or 3 other theirs got caught by taking their own picture? And how many have been caught through GPS?!? If your going to steal a cellphone at least have enough common since to take out the battery until you flash it.
@PlatinumSkeet
Thieves aren't renowned for their smarts.
@Tes Yeah that's because if the thief is smart, we won't hear about it.
Kids, this is why you stay in school.
@sboardr22 Amen to that.
@sboardr22 I agree and also don't forget this is also why birth control was invented.
DUMBASS!
As Red Forman would say...
Is there an iPhone app that does the same thing?
@SToronto
technically impossible on the iphone, unless it's jailbroken
@SToronto I don't think so, iPhone doesn't support multitasking so you'd have to actually launch the app and wait for the pics to upload rather then it just sneakily uploading the pics by itself, like the Droid here...
@kopmis Interesting, didn't think about that.
In a way isn't there multitasking? You can talk on the phone and continue to use apps or safari etc simultaneously.
There are apps that exit the application automatically after a set period, so couldn't there theoretically be an app that would run itself and upload pictures?
@SToronto
You can't have a 3rd party background service run on the iPhone OS the way you can on WebOS and Android (Apple's apps tend to be exceptions to this rule, however, hence talking + web browsing for instance), so no, as mentioned, it's impossible without jailbreaking your iPhone.
@Cin Not to mention that no jailbroken app comes close to this functionality!!! +1 to Android....
@SToronto
You could always just use Mobile Me and see a map of where the crooks are.
That's a cool Android app though.
@SToronto No, I doubt iPhone users will be seeing this functionality until 4.0(I'm assuming they'll add multi-tasking in that, cause it's a much LARGER issue than Android's lack of multi-touch in core apps). But no, it's not possible and as the tons of tons of reasons why multi-tasking is useful mounts, i still have to listen to my army of iPhone friends argue that it's not. The same people who go home to their macs and pcs, start up a streaming music app and then do ANYTHING ELSE on their computers. It's just astounding to me.
@ebgolfin Mobile Me has piqued my interest....except for the $99 annual fee.
@ebgolfin
The only thing about that, is that the GPS isn't always pinpoint accurate if ever. What if the crooks lived in a condo building? What floor are they on etc etc. I think this Android app is fantastic, it could potential give more clues as to the whereabouts. Now both GPS locator and the Android app would be great.
@SToronto Android mega-win.
@RuckingFetard You may be right. I haven't used an Android based handset yet. Recently picked up the iPhone when my provider launched it this past November. I am thoroughly impressed though disappointed on the lack of Flash support, though I knew it going in.....I can't view my own site. Apple will up the ante though in the new release, you can bet they won't take the back seat.
I'm assuming the owners of the property were gone.
So why are their phones at home?
@cardfan
Good observation. Perhaps they went for one of those strolls where people leave their gadgets at home and try to pretend they have control over their lives.
@cardfan Rich home owners maybe? Possibly multiple phones....
@cardfan the article says it was early hours of the morning from the kitchen presumably when the owners were in bed
As Walter would say,
"...dumbass."
are these the burglars we're looking for?
@Davo These are not the droids you are looking for.
The stupidity of some Americans never ceases to astound me. America could do with a huge dose of common sense right now...
Idiots. -.-
@Stereotype
right, stupid people don't clearly live everywhere. I'd give you the benefit of being sarcastic but this is the internet so clearly your comment is ironic.
He found the droid he was looking for, yay! :D
Droid does them
HA, this is hilarious. But seriously I cant live without my Eris, why the hell were their phones at home?
just install wavesecure
Obviously these two cats were rookies. Every experienced burglar knows you have to wait for the auto focus to kick in, then another 1/2 second for the actual picture to be taken.
"Droid does"...
Guess it's another example of why multitasking is so awesome.
Screw "Droid does." The new slogan should be "Droid: Don't f*** with me."
ALL YOUR FACE ARE BELONG TO US!!!!!
Hey it's Blurry McBlurman! I almost caught him stealing my phone too!!
That's a shame.
This is what I love about smartphones. Someone stole my wife's Droid about a week after she got it, so I checked out her location on Latitude. Fortunately, she left the gps on and the guy decided to check out google maps, thus activating the gps. I got a couple friends and we knocked on his trailer park door and he obligingly returned the phone in haste. Though it took another visit 10 minutes later to get the sd card back.
I guess the moral is don't steal things that are smarter than you.
@freefx
"I guess the moral is don't steal things that are smarter than you."
SO TRUE
@freefx That's an insane story... = )